most, in
every thing that is essential to true distinction. With her, even
titular princes and dukes had no estimation, merely as princes and
dukes; and, as her quick mind glanced over the long catalogue of
artificial social gradations and she found Grace actually attaching
an importance to the equivocal and purely conventional condition of
an English baronet, a strong sense of the ludicrous connected itself
with the idea.

"A simple gentleman, Grace!" she repeated slowly after her cousin;
"and is not a simple gentleman, a simple _American_ gentleman, the
equal of any gentleman on earth--of a poor baronet, in particular?"

"Poor baronet, Eve!"

"Yes, dear, _poor_ baronet; I know fully the extent and meaning of
what I say. It is true, we do not know as much of Mr. Powis' family,"
and here Eve's colour heightened, though she made a mighty effort to
be steady and unmoved, "as we might; but we know he is an _American_;
that, at least, is something; and we see he is a gentleman; and what
American gentleman, a real American gentleman, _can_ be the inferior
of an English baronet? Would your uncle, think you; would cousin
Jack; proud, lofty-minded cousin Jack, think you, Grace, consent to
receive so paltry a distinction as a baronetcy, were our institutions
to be so far altered as to admit of such social classifications?"

"Why, what would they be, Eve, if not baronets?"

"Earls, Counts, Dukes, nay Princes! These are the designations of the
higher classes of Europe, and such titles, or those that are
equivalent, would belong to the higher classes here."

"I fancy that Sir George Templemore would not be persuaded to admit
all this!"

"If you had seen Miss Eve, surrounded and admired by princes, as I
have seen her, Miss Grace," said Ann Sidley, "you would not think any
simple Sir George half good enough for her."

"Our good Nanny means, _a_ Sir George," interrupted Eve, laughing,
"and not _the_ Sir George in question. But, seriously, dearest coz,
it depends more on ourselves, and less on others, in what light they
are to regard us, than is commonly supposed. Do you not suppose there
are families in America who, if disposed to raise any objections
beyond those that are purely personal, would object to baronets, and
the wearers of red ribands, as unfit matches for their daughters, on
the ground of rank? What an absurdity would it be, for _a_ Sir
George, or _the_ Sir George either, to object to a daughter of a
President